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Training days

We asked you for your most memorable rail adventures  and you didnt disappoint us

October 16 2005, 1:00am, The Sunday Times

“Riding the rails,” he wrote, “you’re part of the place. The trains themselves, the ever-changing cast of local characters who inhabit them and the views of a country’s unguarded back yard all plunge you into the experience like nothing else.”

He didn’t know the half of it. We asked for tales of your own memorable rail journeys and they’ve been steaming in. While making tracks across the world, you have consorted with Nigerian acrobats, Mongolian salesmen and Ukrainian drunks. You have argued with Italians and wrestled with bushbabies. Dirtied your smocks and washed your smalls.

If Stevenson was right, and travel is about the going, not the arriving, it seems Stephen was right, too: there’s only one smart way to set about it.